Grizzly author mauled by bear in US park

An author who has written books on grizzlies has survived an attack by one of the bears in America's famed Yellowstone National Park, the National Park Service said.

It said 57-year-old Jim Cole of Montana was mauled by a mother with a cub on Wednesday in the park while he was taking photographs. Females can be very protective of their cubs.

Mr Cole managed to walk roughly five kilometres to a road despite severe injuries to his face, the park service said in a statement.

"Cole has published books on the lives of grizzly bears in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska," it said.

It said it is the second time Mr Cole has been attacked by a bear, underscoring the dangers of getting too close to the animals on a regular basis in the wild.

"He walked out of the backcountry and took himself to the hospital after being injured by a grizzly in Glacier National Park in September 1993," the park service said.

In 2003, Timothy Treadwell, an advocate of grizzly protection who also wrote about the bears, and a companion were mauled to death by at least one grizzly in Alaska.

The park service said the latest incident was the first time a person had been injured by a bear in Yellowstone National Park since September 2005.

There have been eight minor human injuries involving bears in the park since 2000. The last human fatality involving a bear in Yellowstone occurred in 1986.